Month: February 2023

Yahoo announced on Thursday that it will lay off more than 20% of its staff by the end of the year, including cutting 1,000 positions this week. The company is seeking to streamline operations in its advertising unit, which has not been profitable.

In an interview with Axios, Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone said that the company is seeking to prioritize other areas. Lanzone added that these layoffs are not a result of economic issues, but rather, they are intentional changes to strengthen the unprofitable Yahoo for Business advertising unit. As a whole, Yahoo is profitable, earning around $8 billion in yearly revenue.  Yahoo will shut down its advertising business and instead focus on its new partnership with Taboola to sell native advertising, said Lanzone. A Yahoo spokesperson added: “These decisions are never easy, but we believe these changes will simplify and strengthen our advertising business for the long run, while enabling Yahoo to deliver better value to our customers and partners.”

In 2021, private-equity firm Apollo acquired Yahoo and AOL for $5 billion. In November 2022, Yahoo took an almost 25% stake in Taboola in a 30-year commercial agreement.  A Yahoo spokesperson said in a statement:  “Over several years, the strategy of our ads business was to compete in the ad tech industry by offering a ‘unified stack’ consisting of our Demand Side Platform (DSP), Supply Side Platform (SSP) and Native platforms. Despite many years of effort and investment, this strategy was not profitable and struggled to live up to our high standards across the entire stack.”

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Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., was attacked Thursday morning in the elevator of her Washington, D.C., apartment building. Her office said in a statement: “Rep. Craig defended herself from the attacker and suffered bruising, but is otherwise physically okay.”  Chief of staff Nick Coe said the assailant then fled, and there was no evidence the attack was politically motivated.

A Metropolitan Police Department report detailing the attack said that Craig first spotted the suspect in her building’s lobby, “acting erratic as if he was under the influence of an unknown substance.” The suspect then entered the elevator with Craig and began doing pushups before punching her in the chin and grabbing her neck, police said. According to the police report, Craig threw her cup of hot coffee at him, after which he escaped. In a statement later Thursday, the U.S. Capitol Police said it is also investigating the attack, but that “there is no indication that the congresswoman was targeted because of her position.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Thursday that his caucus was horrified by the attack on Craig. “We are all very grateful that she is safe and recovering, but appalled that this terrifying assault took place,” adding that he asked the House Sergeant at Arms and the U.S. Capitol Police to “work with Angie, [her wife] Cheryl [Greene] and their sons to ensure that Angie and her family are safe while in our nation’s capital and at home in Minnesota.”

Craig was elected to the House of Representatives in 2018 after defeating Republican Rep. Jason Lewis. She is the first openly LGBTQ member of Congress from Minnesota; and in the 118th Congress, she serves as a co-chairwoman of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

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Disney CEO Bob Iger said on the company’s earnings call on Wednesday that they are set to lay off 7,000 workers. The company is targeting a total of $5.5 billion in cost savings, and $3 billion in cuts will come from content, excluding sports, while $2.5 billion will come from non-content cuts. Iger, who rejoined the company as CEO in November, said: “This reorganization will result in a more cost-effective, coordinated and streamlined approach to our operations. I do not make this decision lightly.”

The layoffs amount to roughly 3% of the company’s 220,000 workers worldwide, and will coincide with a restructuring that will divide the company into three core businesses: Disney Entertainment, ESPN and Disney Parks. Before the layoff announcement, the company released an earnings report which stated that Disney brought in $23.5 billion in revenue over the three months ending in December, which marked an 8% growth over the same period a year prior. However the company’s streaming service, Disney+, lost subscribers for the first time since its launch in 2019. The service dropped 2.4 million subscribers, more than analysts expected.  Shares of Disney rose nearly 8% in after-hours trading.

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Colgate-Palmolive is recalling approximately 4.9 million units of Fabuloso multipurpose cleaner, stating the products may expose consumers to a harmful bacteria. According to a notice posted on Wednesday on the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website, the recalled products can contain Pseudomonas-species bacteria, which are environmental organisms widely found in soil and water. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says people with weakened immune systems, external medical devices, or underlying lung conditions who are exposed to the bacteria face a risk of serious infection that could require medical treatment. Tthe bacteria can enter the body through the eyes or through a break in the skin, and it can also be inhaled. People with healthy immune systems are usually not affected by the bacteria.

Additionally, a notice on Fabuloso’s website says the cause is related to a manufacturing issue in which a preservative was not added at intended levels, adding that “with inadequate preservative, there is a risk of bacteria growth in the recalled products.” , Fabuloso says that five different scented versions of the cleaner are affected; and the affected products were made between December 14, 2022 and January 23, 2023, when the manufacturing issue was corrected. Some 3.9 million of these bottles were never released to the public for sale.

For more information on the Fabulous recall, head here.

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While dlivering his second State of the Union address Tuesday night from the U.S. Capitol, President Biden called for political unity — and challenged Congress to pass immigration reform, protect abortion rights, ban assault weapons, and help rebuild the middle class.

Entering the House chamber to applause and a standing ovation from both Republicans and Democrats, Biden began his address by recognizing new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Said Biden: “I start tonight by congratulating the members of the 118th Congress and the new Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working together.”

During his 80-minute address, Biden touted economic accomplishments during his time as President, despite acknowledging record inflation: “As I stand here tonight, we have created a record 12 million new jobs, more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years,” Biden said, adding, “Here at home, gas prices are down $1.50 a gallon since their peak. Food inflation is coming down. Inflation has fallen every month for the last six months while take-home pay has gone up.”

Biden stressed that “unity” is required between Democrats and Republicans to “finish the job”: “To restore the soul of the nation. To rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class. To unite the country. We’ve been sent here to finish the job. To build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not from the top down. Because when the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well.”

First lady Jill Biden invited multiple guests to Tuesday’s speech, including the Ambassador of Ukraine Oksana Markarova, and RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, parents of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, the Black man who died last month after he was beaten by a group of Memphis police officers during a traffic stop. Additional guests included Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was the victim of a politically motivated attack in October, and Brandon Tsay who disarmed a shooting suspect in the Monterey Park, Calif., mass shooting this past month.

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Authorities in Florida confirmed that the suspect in a Florida mass shooting is dead after being shot and crashing his car after a police chase. Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor said that officers had sought to arrest 21-year-old Alex Greene on Monday for an outstanding burglary warrant, but as officers went to arrest Greene, he fled.

Authorities said Greene ran into a restaurant and then proceeded to carjack another woman’s vehicle; however when Lakeland police officers told Greene to get out of the car, Greene drove the vehicle toward the officer. The officer then shot Greene, whose swerved into oncoming traffic before crashing. Greene was declared dead after being transported to the hospital.

Police suspect that Greene was one of four gunmen in a sedan that opened fire on both sides of a street in “a challenged neighborhood” of Lakeland, Fla., on Jan. 30, injuring at least 10 people. Police Chief Taylor said “we are very confident he was, in fact, involved, to what extent we don’t know yet.” The victims were described as men between the ages of 20 and 35.

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